DOHA: The new Philippine Overseas Labour Office and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (POLO-OWWA) building formally opened yesterday.
The new office, located in Jelaiah area, started operations last February, but was officially inaugurated by Philippine Labour Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, who is on a three-day visit here to meet the local Filipino community.
Ambassador Crescente R Relacion, Labour Attaché Leopoldo De Jesus and Welfare Officer Lenny Cleofas were present at the inauguration ceremony, which was attended by members of the Filipino community.
The opening of a new POLO office, Baldoz said, “expresses our desire to really give the best service for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) here.”
The three-storey building, which is just 300m from the Philippine Embassy, is home to POLO-OWWA as well as Pag-Ibig Fund and Social Security System agencies. It serves more than 200,000 Filipinos in the country and is home to distressed OFWs.
Baldoz is in the Middle East to attend the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, during which she will turn over chairmanship to Kuwait.
“Basically I will turnover the Abu Dhabi Dialogue chairmanship to Kuwait but I thought that I should already make a round of labour offices in the Middle East after more than four years that I haven’t visited them,” she told the local media after the inauguration.
Today, she will meet the United Filipino Organisations Qatar officers and the Filipino community as well as Qatar’s labour minister.
Among the issues she will discuss with the community is how licences issued by the Philippine Professional Regulation Commission to engineers will be recognised here.
Baldoz said she was keen on the issue “because we are also preparing for Asean economic integration 2015 and the mobility of skilled workers, including professionals, will be the new regime for labour migration.”
She stressed the need to review training regulations and local requirements to conform to international standards as the basis for a mutual recognition agreement.
She urged her compatriots to prepare themselves to adjust to the culture of the host country in order to avoid problems and serve the full term of their contracts.
“If they need any help, the POLO office is open 24 hours,” she added.
THE PENINSULA
